“Never engage in action for the sake of reward… alike in success and defeat.”

— Vyasa व्यास 1
Hindu immortals, Vishnu avatar, 5th incarnation of Brahma
from Mahābhārata महाभारतम्

Comments: Click to comment

“When the words come from within, when you are freeing an idea, then the words are powerful. They give life to the thought. They can ignite a fire in another person’s mind.”

— Imhotep 2650 – 2600 BCE
First Western architect, engineer and physician

Comments: Click to comment

“Take everything that happens as it comes, as something to animate, not to appropriate”

— Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Witter Bynner
(Lǎozǐ)
from Way of Life According to Lao Tzu

Comments: Click to comment

“Because he lays claim to no credit, the credit cannot be taken away from him.”

— Lao Tzu 老子 1 via Lin Yutang
(Lǎozǐ)

Comments: Click to comment

“Do not say a little in many words but a great deal in a few.”

— Pythagorus 570 – 495 BCE
(of Samos)
"The most influential philosopher of all time"
from Golden Verses of Pythagoras Χρύσεα

Comments: Click to comment

“Pain is certain, suffering is optional.”

— Buddha गौतम बुद्ध 563 – 483 BCE
(Siddhartha Shakyamuni Gautama)
Awakened Truth

Comments: Click to comment

“At 15, I set my mind and heart on learning. At 30, I stood on my own. At 40 I had no doubts. At 50 I knew heaven’s decree. At 60 my ears were in accord. At 70 I followed the desires of my mind -and-heart.”

— Confucius 孔丘 551 – 479 BCE
(Kongzi, Kǒng Zǐ)
History's most influential "failure"

Comments: Click to comment

“Achievement is the beginning of failure. Fame is the beginning of disgrace.”

— Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE via Thomas Merton
(Zhuangzi)

Comments: Click to comment

“The words of arguments are all relative. To reach the absolute, the truth, we have to harmonize opposites and follow their natural evolution.”

— Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE via Lin Yutang, Shan Dao 2.4
(Zhuangzi)

from Zhuangzi

Comments: Click to comment

“To act without needing a reason… to ride the current of what is – this is the primal virtue.”

— Chuang Tzu 莊周 369 – 286 BCE via Stephen Mitchell
(Zhuangzi)

Comments: Click to comment

“Balance is the beginning of the Way. Emptiness is the heart of the way.”

— Liú Ān 劉安 1
(Huainanzi)

Comments: Click to comment

“Silence at the proper season is wisdom, and better than any speech.”

— Plutarch 46 – 120 CE
(Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus)

Comments: Click to comment

“We’re not disturbed by what happens to us – only by our thoughts about what happens to us”

— Epictetus Ἐπίκτητος 55 – 135 CE
from Discourses of Epictetus, Ἐπικτήτου διατριβαί

Comments: 1 comment

“We are not disturbed by what happens to us, but by our thoughts about what happens to us.”

— Epictetus Ἐπίκτητος 55 – 135 CE
from Discourses of Epictetus, Ἐπικτήτου διατριβαί

Comments: Click to comment

“Whoever sees the nature of one thing sees the nature of everything because the emptiness of one thing is the emptiness of everything.”

— Āryadeva འཕགས་པ་ལྷ། 1
(Kannadeva)
from Four Hundred Verses on the Yogic Deeds of Bodhisattvas

Comments: Click to comment

“The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.”

— Augustine ɔːɡəstiːn 354 – 430 CE
(Saint Augustine, Saint Austin, Augustine of Hippo)

Comments: Click to comment

“Freeing oneself from words is liberation.”

— Bodhidharma 菩提達磨 1
(Daruma)

Comments: Click to comment

— Dazu Huike 487 – 593 CE
(Dz Huk)

Comments: Click to comment

“We hate suffering, but love it’s causes.”

— Shantideva ཞི་བ་ལྷ།།། 685 – 763 CE
(Bhusuku, Śāntideva)
from Bodhisattva Way of Life, Bodhicaryavatara

Comments: Click to comment

“Gone and a million things leave no trace.”

— Han Shan 1
(Cold Mountain)

Comments: Click to comment

“A monk asked Dongshan, "What is Buddha?" Dongshan said, "Three pounds of flax."”

— Dongshan Liangjie 洞山良价 807 – 869 CE
(Dòngshān Liángjiè; Tōzan Ryōkai)

Comments: Click to comment

“When right and wrong, other and self exist in their midst, love and hate will arise and attach each other. When love and hate arise and attack each other, warfare will flourish.”

— Wang Zhen 809 – 859 CE via Ralph D. Sawyer
from Daodejing Lunbing Yaoyishu, The Tao of War

Comments: Click to comment

“From the play of pure knowledge and endless space, I weave cloth of perfect insight into emptiness.”

— Tantipa ཏནྟི་པ། 1
("The Senile Weaver")
Mahasiddha #13

Comments: Click to comment

“The foolish reject what they see and not what they think; the wise reject what they think and not what they see.”

— Huangbo Xiyun 黄檗希运 1
(Huangbo Xiyun, Huángbò Xīyùn, Obaku)
from Zen Teachings of Huang Po on the Transmission of Mind, John Blofeld translation

Comments: Click to comment

“Sages create but do not possess what they create. They succeed but do not claim success. Because they do not lose themselves, they do not lose others.”

— Wang Anshi 王安石 1021 – 1086 CE via Red Pine

Comments: Click to comment

“All depends on time and occasion, nothing is eternal. Therefore sages act without effort, teach without words, 'good and bad' don't enter their minds.”

— Lu Huiqing 1031 – 1111 CE via Red Pine, Shan Dao

Comments: Click to comment

“Losing something is the result of possessing something. How can people lose what they don't possess?”

— Su Che 呂洞 1039 – 1112 CE via Red Pine
(Su Zhe)
Great writer of the Tang and Sung dynasties
from Tao-te-chen-ching-chu

Comments: Click to comment

“The best signs of success are a decreasing of self-centeredness.”

— Gampopa སྒམ་པོ་པ། 1079 – 1153 CE via Herbert Guenther
(Sönam Rinchen, Dakpo Rinpoche)
from Jewel Ornament of Liberation

Comments: Click to comment

“Lao-tzu's 5000-word text clarifies what is mysterious as well as what is obvious. It can be used to attain the Tao, to order a country, or to cultivate the body.”

— Li Xizhai 1 via Red Pine
(Li Hsi-Chai)
from Tao-te-chen-ching yi-chieh

Comments: Click to comment

“All existence involves contrasting pairs. When one is present, both are present. When one is absent, both are absent.”

— Wu Cheng 吴澄 1249 – 1333 CE via Red Pine
"Mr. Grass Hut"

Comments: Click to comment

“As the Godhead is nameless, and all naming is alien to Him so also the soul is nameless; for it is here the same as God.”

— Meister Eckhart 1260 – 1328 CE
(Eckhart von Hochheim)

Comments: Click to comment

“There is no air or water, no creation or creator, no earth, air or space, no guru or disciple, no easy or difficult path.”

— Kabīr कबीर 1399 – 1448 CE via Linda Hess and Shukdeo Singh
from Bijak of Kabir

Comments: Click to comment

“Many people are good at talking and bad at understanding,”

— Teresa of Avila 1515 – 1582 CE
from Way of Perfection

Comments: Click to comment

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit, and lost without deserving.”

— William Shakespeare 1564 – 1616 CE
from Othello

Comments: Click to comment

“When you understand that my poems aren’t really poems, then we can talk poetry together.”

— Ryokan 良寛大愚 1758 – 1758 CE
(Ryōkan Taigu,“The Great Fool”)

Comments: Click to comment

“Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge - it is as immortal as the heart of man.”

— William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“Don’t trust intellectual teachings, recognize that vast and unborn sameness.”

— Shabkar Tsokdruk Rangdrol ཞབས་དཀར་ཚོགས་དྲུག་རང་གྲོལ། 1781 – 1851 CE via Erik Pema Kunsang
from Flight of the Garuda

Comments: Click to comment

“The art of not reading… remember that he who writes for fools always finds a large public. A precondition for reading good books is not reading bad ones: for life is short.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer 1788 – 1860 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”

— Henry David Thoreau 1817 – 1862 CE
Father of environmentalism and America's first yogi
from Walden or Life in the Woods

Comments: Click to comment

“what is success without failure? what is a win without a loss? what is health without illness? you have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. there is always going to be suffering. it’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, that will define you.”

— Mark Twain 1835 – 1910 CE
(Samuel Langhorne Clemens)
America’s most famous author

Comments: Click to comment

“According to a notion of the early Christians, the devil would like to ‘play the part of God’. According to Lao-Tzu’s theory, the nature of the devil consists exactly in the attempt of acting the part of God.”

— Paul Carus 1852 – 1919 CE
The Teachings of Lao Tzu

Comments: Click to comment

“The line between failure and success is so fine. . . that we are often on the line and do not know it.”

— Elbert Hubbard 1856 – 1915 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“He that is slow to believe anything and everything is of great understanding, for belief in one false principle, is the beginning of all unwisdom.”

— Arthur Desmond 1859 – 1929 CE
from Might Is Right

Comments: Click to comment

“Success is never so interesting as struggle.”

— Willa Cather 1873 – 1948 CE
Modern day Lao Tzu

Comments: Click to comment

“opposites always balance on the scales – a sign of high culture. One-sidedness, though it lends momentum, is a mark of barbarism.”

— Carl Jung 1875 – 1961 CE
Insightful shamanistic scientist
from Secret of the Golden Flower 太乙金華宗旨; Tàiyǐ Jīnhuá Zōngzhǐ

Comments: Click to comment

“I have been and still am a seeker, but I have ceased to question stars and books; I have begun to listen to the teaching my blood whispers to me.”

— Hermann Hesse 1877 – 1962 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“It is more fun to talk with someone who doesn't use long, difficult words but rather short, easy words like ‘What about lunch?’”

— A.A. Milne 1882 – 1956 CE
(Alan Alexander Milne)
from Winnie the Pooh

Comments: Click to comment

“though a day be as dense as a decade, no mouth has the might”

— James Joyce 1882 – 1941 CE
from Finnegan's Wake

Comments: Click to comment

“Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of the time.”

— Will (and Ariel) Durant 1885 – 1981 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“Success is relative. It is what we make of the mess we have made of things.”

— T. S. Eliot 1888 – 1965 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“For every traveller who has any taste of his own, the only useful guidebook will be the one which he himself has written.”

— Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them, finding bad reasons for what one believes for other bad reasons.”

— Aldous Huxley 1894 – 1963 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“The principle of leveling of all opposites, and the theory of cycles and universal reversion to opposites are basic for the understanding of Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu philosophy and its practical teachings. All Lao Tzu's paradoxes arise from this point of view.”

— Lín Yǔtáng 林語堂 1895 – 1976 CE
from Wisdom of Laotse

Comments: Click to comment

“The constant assertion of belief is an indication of fear.”

— Krishnamurti 1895 – 1986 CE
(Jiddu Krishnamurti)

Comments: Click to comment

“By admitting the conception of goodness, you are simultaneously creating a conception of badness.”

— Arthur Waley 1899 – 1969 CE
from The Way and its Power

Comments: Click to comment

“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.”

— Erich Fromm 1900 – 1980 CE
One of the most powerful voices of his era promoting the true personal freedom beyond social, political, religious, and national belief systems

Comments: Click to comment

“From emptiness, everything comes out. One whole body of water, or one whole mind, is emptiness. When we reach this understanding we find true meaning to our life.”

— Shunryu Suzuki Roshi 1904 – 1971 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“There is no one so great as the one who does not try to accomplish anything.”

— Masanobu Fukuoka 福岡 正信 1913 – 2008 CE
from One Straw Revolution

Comments: Click to comment

“Chuang Tzu agrees with the paradox of Lao Tzu, ‘When all the world recognizes good as good, it becomes evil’ because it becomes something that one does not have and which one must constantly be pursuing until, in effect, it becomes unattainable.”

— Thomas Merton 1915 – 1968 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“This verse celebrates the relativity of reality, thereby aligning itself with modern science, especially Einstein's theory of relativity.”

— Ralph Alan Dale 1920 – 2006 CE
Translator, author, visionary
from Tao Te Ching, a new translation and commentary

Comments: Click to comment

“The most powerful, smallest and largest thing in the universe is the mind.”

— Karmapa XVI ཀརྨ་བཀའ་བརྒྱུད། 1924 – 1981 CE
(Rangjung Rigpe Dorje)
from Rangjung Rigpe Dorje

Comments: Click to comment

“The passageway into the world of shamans opens up after the warrior has learned to shut off his internal dialogue.”

— Carlos Castaneda 1925 – 1998 CE
from Wheel of Time: The Shamans of Mexico Their Thoughts About Life Death & the Universe

Comments: Click to comment

“Success and failure are greatly overrated. But failure gives you a whole lot more to talk about.

”

— Hildegard Knef 1925 – 2002 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“Success is like reaching an important birthday and finding you're exactly the same.”

— Audrey Hepburn 1929 – 1993 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“To believe that our beliefs are permanent truths which encompass reality is a sad arrogance.”

— Ursula Le Guin 1929 – 2018 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion.”

— Pema Chödrön 1936 CE –
(Deirdre Blomfield-Brown)
First American Vajrayana nun

Comments: Click to comment

“Form is empty of our preconceptions, empty of our judgements… Form is empty if we see it in the absence of our own personal interpretations of it.”

— Chögyam Trungpa 1939 – 1987 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.”

— John Lennon 1940 – 1980 CE

Comments: Click to comment

“There’s no success like failure, and failure’s no success at all.”

— Bob Dylan 1941 CE – via Love Minus Zero
from Bringing it all Back Home

Comments: Click to comment

“So winners are the real losers because they learn nothing?… If losers can exploit what their adversaries teach them, yes, losers can become winners in the long term.”

— David Mitchell 1969 CE –
from Bone Clocks

Comments: Click to comment

“The sage […] realizes that things arise of their own accord, and not as the result of her own coercion or anxious striving […] so she does not feel any sense of ownership over the result of her actions.”

— Yi-Ping Ong 1978 CE –
from Tao Te Ching - Introduction and Notes

Comments: Click to comment